The Saintly CEO: 7 Considerations About Almsgiving
Learn How to Approach Almsgiving as a Catholic Founder, What Did The Church Fathers Taught About Almsgiving, and More.
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Happy start of the new liturgical year. If you’re like me, this is always a fun time to break out the purple ties.
Welcome back to The Saintly CEO. Every Monday, while you sip your coffee, get some tactical advice to run your business fully in union with your Catholic faith.
Each week you’ll find…
Catholic Founders Events + News | Tips to Become a Saintly CEO | ~5 Heavenly Hustlers | + Several Misc. Resources
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News / Updates
📆 On Tuesday, December 16th, in NYC, we are hosting a dinner for Catholic entrepreneurs. Location TBD. If you’d like to attend, register here.
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7 Considerations About Almsgiving
As Advent begins, we turn our attention to prayer, penance, and almsgiving. Inspired by Nathan Crankfield’s recent episode and with Giving Tuesday tomorrow, we will focus specifically on almsgiving (charitable giving). Here are seven key considerations for the Catholic Founder when giving.
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Visit versojobs.com or book a demo to get started — To the heights. ⛰️1. Consider the nature of our possessions.
God is the one who grants us everything we have—our life, our skills, our interests, and financial success. To the extent we are involved, it is merely as a cooperator. This truth calls us to embrace the role of steward, not owner, of our possessions. With this perspective, the money is not truly ours, making it easier to give generously to those in need and to the Church.
We have covered this a lot in past issues and episodes of the podcast so I’ll leave it there. If you’d like more on this, check out the episode with Daniel Catone.
2. Consider detachment from money.
As Catholic entrepreneurs, I’m sure we have all spent some time thinking about or discussing the story of the rich man and the eye of the needle.
“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” Matthew 6:24
We should not presume that we are detached from love of money. In order to continue to mortify the desire to possess money, we need to force ourselves to give alms. We must to give to a point where it hurts. If it doesn’t hurt a little, we are not approaching our threshold. If it doesn’t hurt, we are remaining in the comfort zone of giving.
Seeking comfort is what starts us down the road of desiring luxury and excess. Hence the need to mortify the desire for comfort early in our life — before we have great excess.
See giving as a way to practice mortification in this realm.
3. Consider what the Church Fathers said about almsgiving.
St. Cyprian, St. Basil, and St. Ambrose viewed the wealthy as God’s dispensers.
St. Augustine taught that a portion of income is a ‘debt’ to Christ’s treasury, as what we receive from Christ far outweighs what we can ever return.
St. Thomas Aquinas stated that, according to the precept of charity, the wealthy are bound under pain of sin if they neglect their responsibility to give to the poor.
4. Giving is a way to execute the works of mercy.
While cutting a check is one way to give, we should use the call to almsgiving as an opportunity to actively execute the works of mercy. Rather than sending money to a faceless nonprofit, consider buying and distributing the goods to those in need yourself.
If you need a refresher on the corporal works of mercy (as I did) here they are.
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To get started reach out to catholicfounders@gmail.com with what you’re looking for and we’ll get started. 5. Giving properly can transform hearts.
When we give individually, we are not only practicing subsidiarity, but we are also giving God a chance to transform the hearts of both the giver and the recipient.
Contrast the impact of a meal received from a nonprofit employee in an official vest with that of an individual ministering to the needy directly. Getting to know the downtrodden personally, asking what is needed, and providing it.
This personal encounter is what makes the gift powerful—it is hard for a recipient to feel the full impact when receiving from a faceless, taxpayer-funded organization versus an individual who gave their own time and money.
Additionally, as givers, this personalized approach to charity provides an opportunity for conversion of our own hearts and a strong dose of humility. By supporting the downtrodden, we can recall our own smallness and dependence on God.
6. Giving is practicing justice, to our communities and to The Church.
A precept of the Church is to provide for the needs of The Church. We receive ‘services’ from The Church in the form of mass, confession, spiritual direction, etc. It is unjust for us not to give sufficiently so that The Church, and her ministers can be provided for.
7. Giving generously is a way to trust in God.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, giving generously — to the point where it hurts a little — is a way to truly trust in God.
When we withhold out of fear that we won’t have enough, we are telling God, “I don’t trust in you to provide for me.”
But this is nonsense. Jesus taught us to ask for our daily bread and told us the parable of the lilies of the field, assuring us God will provide. Giving generously is a way to intentionally place our trust in Him.
However, this isn’t natural. It must be practiced. And to perfect it, we need to ask for the grace to fully trust in Him above all things.
I saved this for last because our entire life comes down to one choice: God’s Will or My Will. Giving generously is a chance to practice choosing God’s Will.
God Bless & Happy Building
~Silas Mähner
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Visit saintkolbestudios.com to get started.Heavenly Hustlers
Looking to meet other ambitious Catholic business owners? You’re in the right place.
Meet today’s Heavenly Hustlers.
📊 Jacob Cremers is building Beans. A way to make data analysis simple and accessible. Think Figma but for data viz.
🔬 Joshua Pineault is the Co-Founder of Keystone Therapeutics. A biotech company with the goal of treating rare types of cancer. He has a fascinating personal story as to why he got into biotech. I’d reach out to him to learn more about it.
⚙️ Mark Powers is the CEO and Owner at Trinity Technologies, selling semiconductor components.
💰 Neil Ahlsten is at 1Flourish Ventures. A VC fund run by faith-based investors.
🔍 Peter Cetale is building Sourcerer, a platform utilizing AI to improve transparency in the supply chain/procurement process.
🙋♂️ Nominate a Heavenly Hustler (including yourself) - It takes 1 min.
Big thanks to Catholic Owned for helping us identify some of these Heavenly Hustlers each week. Support other Catholic Owned businesses today! — Get listed today!
Become a Sponsor! Get your message in front of hundreds of Catholic business owners! Reach out today —> Admin@CatholicFounders.com Misc. Resources:
Groups:
Join the Catholic Founders Guild (peer group) $10/month or $100/year
Join We Are Catholic on Vinly — It’s free and there are a ton of great folks there.
Join DOMINUS Lab (tons of resources to help build 1000 Christian Startups)
Events:
We’re hosting a dinner for Catholic Founders on December 16th in NYC. Register here to attend.
Fides Entrepreneurship’s future events (NYC) (I’ll be attending the one with Rob Kaczmark on Dec 4th. Let’s link up if you’re there).
Content:
We had an amazing episode with Mike Parrott recently — If you missed it, I’d highly recommend checking it out.
On a similar topic, we had a Catholic Founders Guild call to discuss family legacy and how to approach leaving money to your children. It was really eye-opening. To get access, upgrade to a paid membership today.
I recently heard about this book, Leaving a Legacy, by (creator of the Becoming Noble Substack). Have not read it yet, but heard great things about it, and it also fits nicely with this recent theme of legacy.
Services:
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OFFSHORE TALENT: Hire a Catholic Virtual Assistant through ParacleteVA (email us: dearcfpod@gmail.com)
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